AS part of the Government's route out of lockdown, it was announced this week that primary schools in England - though not Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland - will start to reopen from June 1.

While that is welcome, it is not going to be enough to avert long and lasting damage to the unspoken victims of the Covid-19 pandemic: the nation's children, especially those from dis- advantaged homes. For every day they are missing out on formal education, their life chances are being harmed. They will be less likely to attain a degree and their earnings potential will fall. We know this because there have been plenty of studies of children who have been forced to take a break from education for various reasons. But, worse, the harm being done is slewed disproportionately to children from poorer backgrounds.

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While private schools and the best state schools switched to online learning, for too many state school children education has either been reduced to the odd worksheet - or has effectively ceased altogether. According to a survey of secondary school teachers, three quarters in private establishments say they have taken at least one live lesson over the internet in recent weeks. This was true of only six percent of teachers in state schools.

When schools were closed on March 20, stemming the epidemic was its first priority. But there has been far too little thought since then put into ensuring that education can carry on in the best way it can.

Schools have been left to themselves to decide what to do, with some far more eager and innovative than others.

One of the big problems is that many children don't have a computer, and that a significant minority live in homes without even an internet connection. According to the Office for National Statistics, seven percent of UK households still have no broadband. That will no doubt come as a surprise to politicians and officials for whom using computers is second nature, but it is no excuse for inaction.

Primary schools in England will start to reopen from June 1 (Image: DGLimages/Getty Images)

As soon as the schools were closed the Government should have ensured that all children were able to carry on their education online - either by lending them computers, fixing homes with temporary broadband, or by inviting the most disadvantaged children to continue to attend school. There is plenty of room for them, even allowing for the requirement for social distancing. Schools have remained open throughout this crisis for the benefit of key workers.

The Government worked on the assumption that up to 20 percent of children would carry on at school, but only two percent have done so. The reopening of primary schools in England is to be applauded. The devolved governments are letting their children down. The SNP, in particular, disgracefully seems to be using the pandemic as it uses every political issue - to try to drive a wedge between Holyrood and Westminster hoping to provoke a second referendum.

Some unions, too, deserve condemnation for the way they have tried to block the reopening of schools. The National Education Union especially is guilty of using obstructive tactics, telling its members not to co-operate. Its behaviour earned a rebuke yesterday from former Labour education secretary David Blunkett, who warned it will succeed only in widening the gap between rich and poor children. Reopening schools is not entirely without risk - nothing is. But it is ridiculous to oppose reopening, as some have done, on the grounds that the Government has been unable to produce modelling to prove it would be safe.

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We have had enough dodgy models in this crisis. What about the real-world evidence? In Denmark, primary schools have been open for a month, with social distancing. There has been no second virus spike.

Moreover, there is a lot of evidence to show children are not spreading the virus.

Research from Iceland, which has been more meticulous in testing and tracing cases than any other country, failed to find a single case where a child passed the virus on. A worldwide review of evidence by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health similarly failed to find an single documented case of a child under 10 passing Covid-19 to an adult.

This week, children started to return to school in France, Germany and the Netherlands. If they can reopen schools with social distancing, so can we.

Indeed, if we fail to do this over the next few weeks, or otherwise arrange for schooling to continue online, we will be condemning a whole generation of children to a lifetime of disadvantage.